Disclosure: I have not bought an iPhone 3G S — I’m still unsure if I will. Apple gave me a review unit to play with for 60 days.
So, I’ve now had a full day with the latest iPhone, the 3G S. So far, so good. This isn’t meant to be a full review — that will come later. But I wanted to give an initial reaction based on the last 24 hours, because as someone who has more than extensively used both the original iPhone and the iPhone 3G, a lot of users may be interested to know what immediately strikes me as different in this version.
The obvious answer would be its speed. There’s no denying it, it is fast. But that speed is severely hampered by AT&T’s often bad service and the fact that while this phone is capable of transferring data about roughly twice the speed of the iPhone 3G, AT&T’s network isn’t yet capable of doing the same, rendering that advantage moot. So instead of iPhone 3G S, I really would have called this thing the iPhone 3G V — for video. Because that feature, quite simply, is awesome.
Yes, plenty of other devices have done video in the past, but the combination of the overall package of the iPhone with this video recording capability is a game-changer in my opinion. And as we wrote last night, this could spell big trouble for the Flip. Others are saying the same thing. The way that the 3G S handles video is more than good enough for the average consumer. And I think we’re going to see that play out over the next several months.
Not only does the 3G S shoot video in fairly nice (VGA) quality (with the possibility of doing HD quality someday), it is dead simple to upload to YouTube — it is literally the click of one button. Almost immediately after unboxing the 3G S I shot a quick 30 second video (embedded below), and within minutes it was online being viewed on YouTube — and that was transferring it to YouTube via 3G. (Over WiFi, it’s obviously even faster.) No, that’s not as real-time as live video streaming that a service like Qik would like to offer (but is currently being restricted from doing so), but again, it’s fast enough for most consumers, and it’s much better quality to boot.
And one thing that sets it apart from competitor smartphones with similar functionality, like the Google Ion (aka the G2 or HTC Magic), is that the 3G S has dead-simple video editing capabilities right on the device. You simply drag your finger across the video timeline along the top of a video to trim it down to just the part you want before you upload it. And playback of these videos on the device itself looks great.
But really, it’s the whole package of the iPhone as an extremely consumer-friendly device mixed with this video functionality that is killer. Just think about all those popular Twitter applications on the iPhone. When those add video sharing functionality, these iPhone videos are going to be everywhere, just as iPhone-shot pictures are.
And it’s already happening. The increasingly popular yfrog was the first such service to support video from the 3G S, as it already is offering it through Twittelator. And the video attachments are already coming in from the new device. You can expect a surge of other Twitter apps to follow, as TweetDeck, Tweetie and Twitterrific are all ready to launch video support with yfrog, we hear.
And you can bet that other services like TwitVid, the other TwitVid, 12seconds and possibly even TwitPic are sure to follow. But the fact that you can record a video and upload it with one click to YouTube is huge. And with YouTube’s new social features, those videos can auto-tweet out when you upload them, as I learned yesterday.
I asked YouTube for its thoughts on the new iPhone. “It’s a truly amazing world – and great for YouTube – if everyone has an IP connected video camera in their pocket 24/7. Examples such as the protest videos in Iran display the incredible impact of getting video online and shared with the world. The 3G S is only going to increase the velocity of realtime creation and sharing via YouTube,” Hunter Walk, the Director of Product Management at YouTube, tells us.
I can already see it — there will be so many simple ways to get video from your iPhone 3G S to the web, that we’re about to enter the next phase of mobile social sharing: Full-on video. And I think that’s fantastic, I just hope all these services are ready as obviously video is an entirely different game than pictures are. Yfrog claims to be ready, as does YouTube. “We’re already seeing thousands of uploads from new iPhones, but we’re built for scale and receive more than 20 hours of video every minute, so overall quite confident that iPhone users will have a great experience sharing via YouTube,” Walk says.
Really, the only thing I see inhibiting this video revolution on the iPhone 3G S is, not surprisingly, AT&T. How the service is going to handle all these relatively big video files flying over its network all the time now is a huge question mark. We already saw that it couldn’t handle a few thousand geeks with iPhones being in the same place at the same time during SXSW this year — just imagine the first event where there are thousands of geeks with thousands of iPhone 3G Ss, uploading video.
AT&T says that it is continuing to upgrade and improve its network. But the company couldn’t even get MMS ready to go in the U.S. for the iPhone 3G S launch, so I’m skeptical.
The time for excuses is over for AT&T. If it wants to prove it deserves that iPhone exclusivity, it needs to be ready for what’s about to occur. The mobile video revolution is upon us. And that’s why this device should have been called the iPhone 3G V.
Below find a couple more tests, one in widescreen (horizontal) mode, one in vertical mode — featuring me as I am in most social situations, on the iPhone.
I broke down and picked one up. It is faster, and the video quality is shockingly good. I haven’t played with the compass but I’m assuming some rad apps will come out for it. Worth the $399 upgrade (for me)? Time will tell, but for those who are experiencing the iPhone for the first time….they’re going to be absolutely floored. It’s a swiss army knife as Mike Demers says.
Yes, agree with the Swiss Army knife sentiment, especially with the new compass.
I would like for ATT to have better phone quality. It is aweful when you can use your mobile from home. #AT&T #iPhone
Just waiting for it to launch in India – of course, over here we don’t have a 3G network yet, so I will be uploading those videos through the home wifi
It’s insanely fast over WiFi to do that.
first TC review on iPhone 3GS focusing on video capability {seesmic_video:{”url_thumbnail”:{”value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/J8mlZ9fhRx_th1.jpg”}”title”:{”value”:”first TC review on iPhone 3GS focusing on video capability ”}”videoUri”:{”value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/gxIRNYFDzm”}}}
yep, agreed, huge potential in the social space.
MG, it may not be so here – our Internet speeds are not that fast either
– I have a 2 mbps connection, and that is faster than average.
video quality looks really good. I assume indoor will be bit poorer (usually does) but I would agree with you, the mobile video revolution is upon us.
Just today I heard Apple in Italy will sell iPhones 3GS WITHOUT SIM LOCK for 599 €.
But they don’t deliver internationally. Im pulling now some connections and try to get few here in Germany.
Contract prices with T-Mobile here are pain in the butt same as AT&T but with bit better service.
indoor quality during the day is good, at night it’s obviously worse, but still watchable for sure. i’m really impressed how pictures taken at night with the new camera look thanks to auto-focus.
you are really funny
“the mobile video revolution is upon us”
Nokia’s had video recording capability since 1999
Welcome to 1999 Apple!
huh.. really.. my nokia 5800 has much more better video & photo resolution\quality than 3gs.. iphone = soap bubble
yeah i love the one click seemless upload to Youtube on Nokia phones…no wait, it doesn’t exist even tho they have had several years
People pose for pics.
Will they pose if you have a video camera capable of uploading all of their idiocy onto youtube in real time?
Not just saying this… It’s really an incredible, incredible upgrade… However, there’s some serious pitfalls around search and tagging.
I found that after getting an entire day with it, my media library was incredibly full, and the only way I could find anything was through tiny thumbnails. I don’t understand why I’m still searching through my media like this.
Apple baked in Spotlight Search, and therefore I should be able to add a title, description and a few tags to each one of my videos and photos. And when I want to find them, I should be able to swipe my home screen to the right and SEARCH for them. A scrollable list of thumbnails was a wonderful start, but as with any product, Search changes everything…
Yup. I got one today. It’s great for video.
But there are size limits (of about a minute) for emailed videos.
We’ve been testing it successfully for posting videos and audio to Phreadz
here’s the unbox and some test posts (as replies)
http://phz.in/1jtk
one thing I forgot to mention was that there’s no way to force a landscape video while holding the iphone upright (as seen in your ‘portrait’ videos up there)
Photos contain ‘EXIF’ data which can tell an app the orientation of a camera when I photo is taken (if supported by the camera) – and therefore rotate as required – I’d hope that soon there would be a way to do that with video metadata too.
This is also a great ’second chance’ for seesmic to become a video based mobile conversation platform – if they can support the iPhone 3GS soon enough
Phreadz and 12Seconds.tv are already supporting it fine via email (though with size/length limits)
The actual apps which come out supporting the video API will really make a difference – especially when it comes to actually ‘uploading’ a video as opposed to emailing it. Also, this will iron out the usability annoyances at the moment when you want to reply to a video with a video.
view http://phreadz.com/x/ on an iphone
(no replying just yet)
I think the S is fine since here in Germany the network is fast enough. Coming from S60 I am a bit diapointed about the app store. For Symbian I get most of the apps in better versions for free. There are just more games. Yeah.
I’m sick and tired of all this iPhone sh*t I keep seeing on TechCrunch. Bad advertising makes me wanna move to real news sites. Bye.
Jealous much?
COme on dude, it’s the best selling smart phone by far and new features are truly amazing. If you’re a fanboy of Palm or BB or some other phone, it’s time to switch. Hatin’ won’t change anything and will just give you a stroke
I’m a little tired of the hype here on TC, but not as tired as I am of reading “*** much?” – did you pick that up from tween advertising on the Disney channel? If somebody uses a different phone, it’s time to switch? What if you don’t want AT&T’s horrible service?
Ditto! MG and the iPhone need to get a freakin’ room, because the sexual tension is creepy. Also, like you, I hate when people use “{word} much?”
@Matt, you are right dude. I think TC is paid by Apple to run. All stuffs gets salary from Apple! They are so blind anything Apple do. These things what Apple’s iPhone has have had for years. Only thing thing that can be different from other phones is iPhone user interface.
N95 video recording is awsome.
MG – thanks for mentioning YouTube’s autoshare feature. People can go to YouTube and connect their Facebook, Twitter and/or Google Reader accounts so that when you upload a new video – from our website or any mobile device – it automatically pushes that video (either link or embedded player) into the connected services. Just go here to connect accounts: http://www.yout...y_videos_upload
The end result? It’s easier than ever to upload video to YouTube and share with your friends and the world.
Yeah, thanks for the link Hunter.
new video option is really the killer feature. It’s quite amazing.
mike is right when he said that Flip is dead. It really will be since new phones will have awesome video.
i don’t think it will kill the Flip camera.
For instance I usually use the Flip Mino HD to record events like presentations at meetups, and, beside the quality difference, I’d get really piss if a phone call or a push notification or anything else would interrupt my video…
Also I couldn’t record the presentation while tweeting
It won’t? Really? You think that people will spend extra $200 on a Flip just to get higher rez and will carry an extra device in their pocket? Heh.
How many people do you think carry an iPod + iPhone? Very, very few.
Fact is that phone is becoming a unified device for music, calls, video, GPS etc. and separate devices that perform only one function will have to become even more specialized and won’t be mainstream enough to command low prices.
iPhone has become a whitelabel hardware: http://is.gd/17FTX
The video sure is impressive. I shot a few on a sunny day and on the iphone screen it looked close to HD quality. Being a 2G and 3G user before the 3GS, it is hard not to notice how much faster EVERYTHING responds. Apps, browsing, downloading from the app store, email, etc. I have a OQO Model 2 that I have used for the last year on the road – this new iPhone meets my needs so well that I will be listing the OQO on craigslist. Kudos, Apple.
I agree with Jeff on this. S is for SPEED and it is way more impressive than the video functionality. Everything on this is so f***ing fast, its unbelievable how its possible given just 600MHz processor and 256MB RAM.
There was a *massive* line at The Grove today in WestLA. It was all people waiting to buy the phone.
I ate lunch at Morels. Yum. It’s not fine dining, but it’s way better than what I’m used to.
Is there an authoritative reference to how much storage it takes per minute of shot video?
I want to know before I decide on a 16GB or 32GB iPhone.
How the heck should I know?
Hey Steve Jobs, we know you’re reading anonymously, you’ve got a customer on line 4. Pick the fsck up!
Hey, you know what would be really awesome?
A leads system that would scan message boards and blogs and send questions for products by company X to company X as leads for sales.
Like you asked a question about an iPhone to a random person, me, who doesn’t know the answer. A cron PHP daemon should round up all these product questions, organize them into a database, and sell the leads to companies.
Million dollar idea right there. Unfortunately we have a lot invested in our project so it’s for somebody else to pursue. I’m brilliant that way.
Love this! Totally agree with the AT&T problems. They keep saying their service is quality service, but I keep getting dropped calls all the time. Never had that problem with Sprint. The map for AT&T shows list me in a good connection area, but I feel like I’m in a dead zone with all the dropped calls, and disconnects and I’m in a metro area. Apple should look into contracts with other phone providers!!
For video uploads direct from the 3G S to over 40 services across the Social Web you need to have a look at the just released Pixelpipe 1.4.1.
We’ve been supporting video uploads from Cycorder on the older iPhones for months now and have some experience the others will lack. Want to upload upload 200MB videos direct from your iPhone, Android or Nokia? Just download the free Pixelpipe apps and enjoy.
You can download Pixelpipe 1.4.1 from the iPhone App Store now, details at http://tr.im/p7vT
This is very exciting for the video community, but I think 3G S will make YouTube a bigger pile of junk. Luckily, they have the new “Shows” segment to separate the professionally produced shows (not only networks) that can carry premium ads and millions of videos of people’s pets which have limited advertising support capacity, but maybe very entertaining.
Wow. A phone that RECORDS VIDEO!!!! Only the DIVINE GENII at Apple could have come out with something so revolutionary. And instant upload! Who could have thought of it? Certainly not those chumps at TMobile, who have been putting in the Youtube pushbutton logos in all their store branding.
I’d like to add that while the new iphone’s video recording is quite good, considering the limitations of its cheap, low-res camera and optics, the fact that the primary playback screen is a lousy 320×480 pixels in 2009 is ridiculous. Until you’ve see the TouchPro2 record and then playback on its amazing 800×480 screen you haven’t seen what phone-video convergence is capable of.
What’s ridiculous is the fact that HTC is still producing phones with resistive screens in 2009. I know it’s because of WinMo, but they should lose that piece of crap OS if that’s what’s holding them back!
Well, I am gonna grab one right now. 3G network was recently launched in my country, so what better time to test these gadgets.
we will have you tube filled with videos no one is interested in watching. I am not sure if this is good for you tube who are still wondering how to pay for the bandwidth we are using.
Yes, the combination of phone and video is REALLY revolutionary. And VGA resolution too! That is indeed the ‘game changer’ we’ve been waiting for. Never seen that before.
Videoluvr and Amusis have a good point here. There are other phones that already do this. I not sure I understand why do you consider this to be a gamechanger, MG…
Someone from Techcrunch already has been uploading videos from Android. See the comments on this video called “Sparky enjoying a snack at work”:
http://www.yout...h?v=wS1GIW9D068
This is Sol from 12seconds.tv – I just thought I’d mention that we already support 3GS videos on 12seconds – just use your mobile email address. If you make that address a contact, it’s as easy as uploading to YouTube. Hit me up on twitter if you have any questions. Have a great weekend!
Thanks Sol – I mean the potential update to the 12seconds app, but good call.
MG, your voice is way deeper than I imagined it would be. Cool videos. I agree with this video revolution. I guess Apple is holding back a tad though. I think next year they’ll let it do HD video.
Don’t judge a blogger by its writing. Just because he writes like an immature little girl, he may not sound like one.
I’d like to think of MG’s writing style as more of….Marty McFly from Back to the Future (1 and 2, but definitely not 3). Figure that one out after you put down your Barbies.
Nice.
Great ..! Drew
stop trolling around, this is sacred ground
shave & behave Olanoff!
Dude don’t be an insulting asshole.
Please, details about the girls in the third video.
Who, where and what…
I’m loving the speed increase – I even find myself using old iPhone functions like the camera and calendar more than ever simply because the phone keeps up with my brain easier. I fly between tasks and get information about as quickly as I do with my laptop. I think Apple understatedly called performance “snappier” only to divert the ire of recent 3g buyers – this runs circles around past iPhones.
I phone to me is junk———not worth the money nor the hype. In beachwood ohio store there was no lines -no nothing.Im taking mine back
wow am i disapointed—-apple must have a bunch of followers that will buy anything at anytime. I am not happy with the new i phone
Not replacing my Flip, but it’s certainly going to be nice to have these video features.
I think you are spot on regarding the significance if the iPhone 3GS’s video capabilities.
However, the idea that AT&T has to “prove it deserves that iPhone exclusivity” is ridiculous.
AT&T “deserves” the exclusivity because it gave Apple the deal that made Apple the most money (and gave it the most control over the distribution of the device, which is ultimately is about making it more money). If it had been based on the quality of the network, they wouldn’t have gotten it.
So as long as AT&T continues to sweeten the deal financially, or until someone else (Verizon) is willing to offer a competitive deal, AT&T deserves the exclusivity in Apples eyes, regardless of the quality of their network (or customer service
I don’t really like iphone. A laptop works better for me. http;//lap-topnotebooks.com/laptop-notebooks
Could you use the headphone jack as a line input mic and monitor output?
An external mic would be nice. A low quality video with a good mic has a higher perceived production value than vice versa.
I can’t quite see how you are so intrigued by the video feature…. I mean that feature should have been there since the very first iPhone. Even the pay as you go phones can shoot video.
I can see how you could be excited by the video editing feature, but really, all it is is trimming the front and ends of the clip. Not to say that, that is not cool. It is just that I would like to see a little bit more.
You know what would be cool but impraticle? If Adobe was to make a video app for the iPhone that allowed you to edit video, add effects, keyframe, etc…
A man can dream.
Video is a nice feature, but I don’t think it’s the next step of the mobile social life. Most people prefer reading text over watching videos and that won’t change. Just look at the videos in the Techcrunch comments for example, nobody wants to watch them.
I read a lot online, and I love reading good and interesting articles, newspieces, etc. But I still love video, and prefer it. I can’t imagine most lazy joes who sit in front of their tv aren’t the same? Video comments on techcrunch get no viewers because the integration isn’t attractive to click. If they were simply youtube embeds I’d watch them.
yehforgames in wow arena
How long is the video capturing capability? is it bounded to 1 minute? or as long as you have memory?
The video looks good? Looks pretty fuzzy, lacking detail and very small dynamic range to me in these examples. Guess I’ll have to see it on the phone.
This iphone won’t kill the flip. The flip will probably have to come down in price. Every compact camera is getting video, the new ones have HD video… that will kill the filp.
Twitter again? What a surprise.
My guess is that they won’t highlight the video capabilities until they can record in HD. Otherwise, it’s just another mobile phone that does video with no differentiation (although, I have to say the vids look great). Until they can make the Flip on rez, it won’t be marketed as a killer feature.
With Qik on my N95 I’ve been able to stream live video to the web for ages.
Video on a cellphone…what a killer feature! The cellphones I have been using for the last 4 years have all offered this feature…
Agreed with most of the article but let’s get it straight: the iPhone 3G S can’t EDIT video! It can only trim clips. To edit you have to be able to join two clips together. There is a significant difference. I’m sure an editing app isn’t far away though!
Video! MMS! Copy paste!
There was a poor man living in a tiny, single room house in a village. He had a wife, seven kids and one goat. Living conditions were terrible. The entire family lived, slept and cooked in the same room. It was cramped, smelly and very stressful.
The man asked the village priest for advice. The priest told him to move the goat into the room as well, and keep it there until he allowed him to take it out. The man was bewildered, but being god fearing, he trusted the priest and did as he was told. Life became a lot harder. The goat soiled, the room smelled much worse, it kept them up at night and just made things a living hell.
A week later he went back to the priest, begging to remove the goat because instead of helping, it was just making things even more unbearable. The priest told him to keep it. Another week went by and another and another. Finally, after a month, the priest told the man he could take out the goat.
With the animal out, the room seemed huge, it smelled lovely and fresh, they no longer had to watch out for goat mines and were able to get a good night’s sleep.
Life became much, much better…
Good review, but it looks like the the hype of iphone 3Gs is killed by the Palm Pre:
http://www.weal...re-taken-users/
To all those commenters saying “I’ve had video on my Nokia / HTC / Whatever for ages” – try giving your ahead-of-the-times phone to your mother and ask her to record a video and upload it to YouTube…
I’m still waiting….
Still…
Now give her an iPhone 3GS and ask her to do the same thing.
Done and done.
The 3GS combines everything into one nice package that normal people (not TechCrunch commenters) can actually use.
My wife and I both had a 3G. She got the upgrade to a 3GS for a simple reason – the new camera / video. We can record video of our six month old and share with our family easily.
MG is spot on with this article.
well, once the account details are setup on the N95 for the supported upload location its very easy – just choose the ’share online’ icon.
Yeah we’ll just wait for those YouTube device upload numbers to come in
The thing is going to destroy all those other smartphones just like it does on Flickr already with pictures even though other phones had that functionality before as well.
on what basis do you say it destroys all other smart phones?
latest flickr stats as follows:
iPhone=10,212,850
Nokia=25,126,772
Actually, the first service that was accepting video was 12Seconds, and they are still accepting video. It’s done through email and plenty of phones have had the capability, but now the iPhone does too.
What was revolutionary about the original iPhone wasn’t the checklist of features, it was that a phone manufacturer finally gave a damn about the entire experience: software, features, usability, hardware design.
I’ve owned WinMo, Palm and Symbian phones and can easily say “Oh my phone had that back in 1999″ but you know what? The experience, compatability and integration sucked. That’s what this new iPhone brings. It’s not that video is so revolutionary it’s that it makes it dead on easy to do what you want to do… record and post. One button. Palm and Nokia *should* have done this back in 1999, 2000, hell, 2004, 2005, but they didn’t. Why? Based on my experience it was because they didn’t give a rip about (or didn’t understand) how people really wanted to use their phones.
Exactly.
I can see how you might be interested in the new video features of the 3Gs; however, as a threat to Flip, I disagree. Don’t you think that the Flip has broader appeal for those who want strictly video?
I think he is right about the whole revolutionizing the mobile video scene – however, I think comparing to Flip was just to sensationalize it a bit….
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